sla user guide - alberta.ca · the student learning assessment (sla) application is an online tool...

SLAUser GuideAlberta Provincial Student Learning Assessment For Teachers, Principals, and Superintendents

2020-2021

User Guide | August 2020 ii

Table of Contents

Welcome .................................................................................................................................... 1

SLA Application at a Glance ..................................................................................................... 2

SLA Teacher Dashboard at a Glance ........................................................................................ 3

Menu Navigation ........................................................................................................................ 4

SLA Administration Overview ................................................................................................... 4

Administration Period ................................................................................................................ 4

Administering Performance Tasks ........................................................................................... 4

Marking the Performance Tasks ................................................................................................ 5

Creating Class Lists and Selecting Digital Assessments ........................................................ 5

Creating a Class List ................................................................................................................. 6

Reassigning a Class List ........................................................................................................... 7

Your Class List.......................................................................................................................... 8

Selecting Assessments ......................................................................................................... 9

Student Participation ........................................................................................................... 10

Administering Digital Assessments ....................................................................................... 11

Digital Assessment Statuses ................................................................................................... 11

Starting a Digital Assessment .................................................................................................. 12

Monitoring Student Progress ................................................................................................... 12

Student Progress Status ...................................................................................................... 12

Unlock a Section ................................................................................................................. 13

Submitting a Digital Assessment ............................................................................................. 13

Undo Submission of a Digital Assessment ........................................................................... 14

SLA Reporting Overview ......................................................................................................... 15

Sample Reports ...................................................................................................................... 15

Report Availability ................................................................................................................... 15

Individual Student and Class Reports .................................................................................... 15

Accessing Reports .................................................................................................................. 15

Class Reports ......................................................................................................................... 15

User Guide | August 2020

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Selecting a Class Report ..................................................................................................... 15

Viewing a Class Report ....................................................................................................... 16

Printing a Class Report ........................................................................................................ 18

Individual Student Reports ...................................................................................................... 18

Selecting an Individual Student Report ................................................................................ 18

Viewing an Individual Student Report .................................................................................. 18

Printing Individual Student Reports ...................................................................................... 20

Superintendent Reports .......................................................................................................... 20

Viewing the Technical Dashboard .......................................................................................... 20

Student Access to the Digital Assessment ............................................................................ 21

Student Technical Issues ........................................................................................................ 22

Practice Questions .................................................................................................................. 22

Skipped Questions .................................................................................................................. 22


1

Welcome The Student Learning Assessment (SLA) Application is an online tool that provides access to the

Teacher Dashboard, which enables you to register students for the SLA, choose which assessments

to administer, monitor student progress, and view associated individual student and class reports.

The SLA Application also provides access to the student portal, practice questions, and released

questions from prior administrations.

Get started. Set up your Alberta Education Account and request access to the SLA Teacher

Dashboard. If you previously administered the Grade 3 SLA (SLA3), then you can skip this step as

you should already have an account.

Note: Principals are automatically granted access to the SLA Teacher Dashboard and can create

class lists and administer assessments. Superintendents are also automatically granted access to

the SLA Teacher Dashboard and can view the Superintendent Report.

Access the application.

1. Go to the SLA Application.

2. Click on the button in the top right-hand corner of the SLA Application.

3. Use your Alberta Education Account email and password to sign in.

4. If you have not been granted permission to the SLA Teacher Dashboard, choose the option to set

up your Extranet Profile.

5. Complete all the required steps to request access to the SLA Teacher Dashboard.

Note: The principal at your school is the approving officer for the request. They will have to approve

any pending requests for access to the SLA Teacher Dashboard through their Alberta Education

Account.

Once the request has been approved, you will receive an email notification to the email address

associated with your Alberta Education Account. You now have access to the SLA Teacher

Dashboard.

Refer back to step 1 to sign in to the SLA Teacher Dashboard.

https://public.education.alberta.ca/assessment/


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SLA Application at a Glance

1. Teacher Access – Access the SLA Teacher Dashboard.

2. Language Selection – Switch the application language between English and French.

3. SLA Student Access – Students access to the SLA Student Portal.

4. Practice Questions – Students can access practice questions before taking the SLA.

5. Released Questions – A selection of released questions from previous SLA3 assessments is available.


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6. Navigation Menu – Access other pages in the SLA Teacher Dashboard. See “Menu

Navigation” for more details.

7. Assessment Year Selection – Change the assessment year.

8. Language Selection – Switch the application language between English and French.

9. Feedback – Send feedback to Alberta Education about the SLA Teacher Dashboard.

Please provide as much detail as possible regarding the specific item you are leaving

feedback for. If you would like to provide Alberta Education with the ability to contact you as

a follow up or for more clarification, please check off the box.

For immediate support, please call the Workforce Development Help Desk:

Telephone: 780-427-5318

Toll-free within Alberta: 310-0000

Email: [email protected]

Office hours: Monday through Friday 8:15 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.

The office is open during the lunch hour.

10. Account Settings – View your Alberta Education Account details, sign out, sign in as

another user, and more.

11. Take Tour – Take a guided tour of the application.

SLA Teacher Dashboard at a Glance

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mailto:[email protected]


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Menu Navigation Home: Access the homepage of the application.

Performance Tasks: Access the available Performance

Tasks.

Digital Assessment: Access the Digital Assessments,

Class Lists, and Assessment Preview from this drop-down

menu.

Reports: Teachers and principals can view class and

individual student reports, and superintendents can view the

Superintendent Report.

Technical Dashboard: Monitor schools for configuration

issues, network speed, and Digital Assessment

completions.

Help and FAQs: View instructional videos for additional

help as well as FAQs.

SLA Administration Overview

Administration Period

Digital Assessments and Performance Tasks will be available to administer from mid-August to

end of October 2020.

Note: Superintendents will only have access to the Superintendent Report.

Administering Performance Tasks The Performance Tasks are accessed via their own tab in the left-hand menu and do not require a

class list to be created in order to administer.

The Performance Task page provides resource documents for both teachers and students. Refer to

the list under “Administration” for the Administration Guidelines, Student Templates (for students to

use while doing the Performance Task activities), and the Class Presentation. The list under

“Marking” contains the Exemplars and Rubrics for marking.

Performance Tasks for all five subjects are available to all teachers, but only two subjects will be

expanded by default. Those expanded subjects will be determined by whether the teacher’s school

is a Francophone school, and then by the language setting of the teacher’s screen. Performance

Tasks for the other subjects can be expanded at any time.


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Example: If a teacher is not at a Francophone school, but their screen language is set to French,

they will have the French Immersion Literacy Performance Task and French Numeracy Performance

Task expanded by default.

Marking the Performance Tasks

Teachers will mark students’ responses to the Performance Tasks locally using the assessment

materials provided in the “Marking” list, so that they are better able to apply the provincial standards.

Schools do not report the Performance Task results back to Alberta Education. Student results for

the Performance Tasks are to be reported at the local level, which should follow shortly after the

administration of the SLA3. As such, schools and authorities can locally determine their own method

for local reporting

Creating Class Lists and Selecting Digital Assessments

1. Create a class list: This list will contain all the students you will be administering the

assessment to. Go to “Creating a Class List.”

2. Choose an assessment: Choose which assessments you’ll be administering to the

students in your class list. Go to “Selecting Assessments”.

3. Start the assessment: When the assessment administration period begins, you will be able

to start the assessment for your students. Throughout the administration you can monitor the

progress of your students from within the SLA Teacher Dashboard. Go to “Administering

Digital Assessments.”


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for

Creating a Class List

The first step in preparing to administer the SLA is to create a class list. This list should include all

the students to whom you will be administering the Digital Assessments.

1. In the left-hand menu, expand the “Digital Assessment” tab (i.e., click on ) and click on

“Manage Class Lists.”

2. On the “Class Lists” page, enter a name for the class list in the “Class Name” field. This will

bring up the “Available Students” list.

3. Add students from the “Available Students” list by clicking each student. The SLA

Teacher Dashboard has provided you with a predefined list of all students currently enrolled in

your school, defaulted to Grade 3.

Note: If you cannot find a student in the “Available Students” list, then click “Find Students Not In

List” and search for them using their Alberta Student Number (ASN). This will be necessary if you

are trying to add students who are not yet assigned to your school code.


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Helpful Tip: You can filter students in a

different grade using the drop-down

selection in the “Grade” column. You can

also use the search boxes for Last Name,

First Name, or ASN to find students. The

Grade filter may need to be changed to

Grade 2 for field testing.

Students that you added from the “Available Students” list will be moved to the “Added Students”

list on the right side of the page.

4. Click the button to remove

students from the “Added Students”

list, if necessary.

5. Click “Save” once you have added all

your students to your class list.

Note: Please submit the Digital assessment for marking after completion. An Individual Student report will be provided for each student who completed the assessments from the class list created. Additionally a Class Report will be provided for each class list you created.


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Reassigning a Class List

Principals (or whomever they have delegated their access to) have the ability to create class lists

and reassign them to the teachers in their school. Principals can view all of the teachers with access

to the SLA Teacher Dashboard in their school (and if they have existing class lists). Principals can

either create a new class list and assign it to a teacher or reassign an existing class list from one

teacher to another teacher in their school (or themselves).

Your Class List

From your Class List page, you can edit or delete your class list and choose which assessments to

administer.


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Selecting Assessments

1. Click the “+ Select assessments” box.

2. Click the appropriate check

box(es) in the pop-up window

to select the assessments

you will want to administer.

You can also change the

program language to

administer other

assessments.

3. Click “Next.”

4. Schedule a date and time you

plan to administer each assessment.

Note: This is an optional step.

Helpful Tip: Estimated dates and

times are sufficient. Information

provided here will NOT prevent you

from administering on a different day

and time.

5. Click “Done.”

6. You should now see the selected assessments beneath your class list. To change which

Digital Assessments you will administer, click the “Delete” button on the unwanted

assessment and then go back to step 1 to select a different assessment.


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Student Participation

By default, all students in a class list that have an associated Digital Assessment are given a status

of “Participating.” During the administration period, you may have students who are absent or

excused (or are otherwise unable to participate in the SLA). You can change the student’s status for

that assessment to “Not Participating.”

The student’s status can be changed back at any time if they are able to participate, so long as the

Digital Assessment has not been submitted for marking. Students actually cannot log in unless their

status is set to “Participating.”

How to Change a Student’s Status

1. Click on the to expand the drop-down menu.

2. Use the drop-down menu to change the status for that student, for that assessment.


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Administering Digital Assessments By mid-August, the SLA Teacher Dashboard is available for teachers to set up their class lists, print

performance task materials, and preview the assessments. The Grade 3 SLA will be available for

administration from mid-August to end of October 2020.

Following the administration window, the Grade 3 SLA is available to participating teachers to

re-administer at their discretion throughout the school year to further support learning and instruction.

A “Retake Assessment” button will appear on the Digital Assessment box below the class list.

Digital Assessment Statuses

The status of each assessment will change depending on the administration period and your class’s

progression. See the full list of status definitions below.

Administration Period Not

Open

The assessment is not yet available for administration.

Ready to Start The assessment is available for the teacher to administer.

In Progress The assessment has been started by the teacher. Students

can sign in and complete the assessment.

Paused The assessment has been paused. Students cannot sign in or

complete the assessment.

Submitted for Marking The teacher has clicked on the “Submit for Marking” button.

Students cannot sign in or complete the assessment.

Report Available

The Individual Student Report, Class Report, and

Superintendent Report (for superintendents only) for the

submitted assessment are available under the Reports tab.

Administration Period Closed The assessment is no longer available for administration.


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Starting a Digital Assessment

1. Click on the button for the appropriate digital assessment.

2. If the status is “Ready to Start,” click on to enable your students to sign in.

Note: See “Student Access to the Digital Assessment” for information on how students sign in.

Monitoring Student Progress

While the students are taking the digital assessment, you can monitor their progress through the

SLA Teacher Dashboard.

Student Progress Status

Students are given access to one section of questions at a time. After they complete the first section,

the next section will be unlocked and the previous section will be locked. To see the detailed

progress for a student, click on the appropriate assessment section.


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Not Started Assessment section has not been started by the student.

In Progress The student is currently working on this section.

Complete The student has submitted all their responses for this section.

Requires Attention During the sign in process, an issue was identified with the student’s

computer. See “Student Technical Issues” for more information.

Locked The student is unable to access this section of the assessment.

Note: Student work is automatically saved as they progress through the digital assessment, so if a

student has computer issues, their work will be saved.

Unlock a Section

Sections will lock after the student proceeds to the next section. You can unlock a section if the

student needs to review their work.

1. Click on the section you want to unlock for that student.

2. Click the button in the pop-up

window.

Submitting a Digital Assessment

Once all of the students in the class list have either completed the assessment or have a status of

“Not Participating,” click on the button to submit the assessment for scoring.

After clicking “Mark Assessment,” you will be given the option to “Undo Submission” in case the

assessment was submitted in error. This option is available until the marking is complete.

Clicking “Mark Assessment” will give you the option to “Go Back” or “Generate Report,” and if

there are students that have unanswered questions in the assessments, a warning message will

display along with the list of those students.


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Clicking “Go Back” will close the window and return you to the assessment screen (assessment will

automatically be Paused). Clicking “Generate Report” will submit the assessment for marking and

generation of the report.

Note: This step must be done in order to view the Reports.

Undo Submission of a Digital Assessment

Once an assessment is submitted, you will be shown a message confirming the submission and the

option to Undo Submission if you do not want to generate the report. Clicking will

then give you the option to “Go Back & Submit Later” or “Continue & Generate Report.” Clicking

“Continue & Generate Report” will re-submit the assessment for marking. Clicking “Go Back &

Submit Later” will remove the assessment for marking and the assessment will be available to

administer again (assessment will automatically be Paused).


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SLA Reporting Overview

Sample Reports

Sample Reports are available on the SLA web page.

Report Availability

Class Reports, Individual Student Reports, and Superintendent Reports will be available in the SLA

Teacher Dashboard within 24 hours of a teacher submitting a Digital Assessment for marking.

Individual Student and Class Reports

Accessing Reports

Teachers and principals can access the Class Reports from within their SLA Teacher Dashboards

via the “Reports” tab in the left-hand menu, or by clicking on the “View Report” button that will

appear in the Digital Assessment box below the class list (see image below).

Class Reports

Selecting a Class Report

1. Click on the down arrow to expand the “Reports” menu

option. This will display the class list names.

Note: For teachers, this will display the class lists you

created. For principals, this will display all the class lists

created in your school.

2. Click on the name of the class list you want to see the

report for. If the report isn’t ready yet, there will be no report

available on the “Reports” page. Ensure the Status on the

Digital Assessment reads “Report Available.”

https://www.alberta.ca/student-learning-assessments.aspx


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Viewing a Class Report

Class Reports are associated to a timeline on the left. The timeline shows a box for each

assessment the selected class list has written, including retakes. The subject, number of students in

the class list, and date of submission are also displayed in each box.

The most recently submitted assessment will default to the top and will

be the selected report. Select a different box to view the report for that

assessment.


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The top half of the report displays “Class Performance” in the form of a bar graph showing the

number of students, by percentage, that achieved each of the levels. Clicking on each bar in the

graph will display a list of the students who achieved that level. Clicking on a name will open that

student’s Individual Student Report. Detailed descriptions of each level can be viewed by clicking on

the level names.


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The bottom half shows more detailed information about the “Student Responses,” including the

number of students who got each question “Correct,” “Partially Correct,” “Incorrect,” or had “No

Response,” by section. Selecting a single bar will pop open a box containing more detailed

information about the item: how many students got it right, wrong, and partially correct; the difficulty

level; and the program outcome(s). Clicking inside the box will open a preview of the question with

the correct response.

Student responses can be sorted by a variety of options using the “Sort By” drop-down menu.

Printing a Class Report

The “Print” option can be found in the top right corner. The print button for Class Reports will

generate a PDF that can then be printed. The print dialogue box also provides the option to include

the Individual Student Report summaries for every student in the class list (any teacher comments

added to Individual Student Reports will also be included).

Individual Student Reports

Selecting an Individual Student Report

In the top right corner of the Class Reports (above the Print button) is a “Class/Student Selection”

drop-down menu. Use this drop-down to select the student for whom you wish to view the Individual

Student Report. Alternatively, you can click on a bar in the Class Performance graph to see a list of

students who achieved a particular level, and click on a name to open that student’s Individual

Student Report.

Viewing an Individual Student Report

The report screen will change to show the Individual Student Report for the selected student.

The top half of the report shows a description of the subject. The level the student achieved will be

highlighted, with additional descriptive bullets to the right. Beneath that, the student’s achievement

level overall is represented by a white dot on a horizontal scale. Descriptions of the levels can be

displayed by clicking on the level labels on the horizontal scale.

The bottom half of the report shows how the student did on each question, and then below that

displays every question in a card, along with how the student did on it, and the specific outcome

associated to it. Teachers can click on each of these question cards to preview the item in a new

window the way the student saw it. The student’s response will be selected and a toggle allows you

to view the answer key. In the window below the question is additional data, including the primary

outcome, any supporting outcomes, and other data depending on the subject.


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In the Individual Student Report, teachers can:

1. Add comments.

2. Sort the results multiple ways using the “Sort By” drop-down.

3. Show or hide the outcomes.

4. Customize the view of the item cards below using a variety of filters based on the

assessment type (i.e., Numeracy or Literacy).

5. Print a one-page summary report for the selected student.

5

1

2

3

4


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Printing Individual Student Reports

The “Print” button for the Individual Student Report will generate a one-page summary in PDF

format for that subject that can then be printed and shared with a student’s parents or guardians (the

PDF will include any teacher comments that have been added). The Assessment Details section can

be included by checking the option in the print dialogue window to include the details.

Superintendent Reports Superintendent Reports will be available via the SLA Teacher Dashboard within 24 hours of a Digital

Assessment being submitted for a class within the school authority, and will be updated as more

assessments are submitted. The report will resemble the top half of the Class Reports, with a bar

graph showing performance across the school authority. Superintendents can drill down to view the

report for a particular school by selecting a school from the drop-down at the top of their screen, and

can choose to print reports using the print button at the top right corner of the report window.

Note: Superintendents will automatically have access to the Superintendent Reports as well as the

Technical Dashboard but will not be able to administer assessments.

Viewing the Technical Dashboard The Technical Dashboard consists of 5 different pages.

Note: Teachers and principals will only be able to see data

for their own school.

Technical Summary

This page shows a combined summary of all the available data in the other four tabs on a map, for

the user’s school authority (or school for teachers and principals). Clicking on an icon in the map will

give more details in a pop-up. Clicking on “More Details” in the pop-up will redirect the user to the

corresponding tab. Change the date range to select the period of time you wish to view the data for.

Software Configurations

This page allows the user to identify schools that had configuration issues. A table below the map

outlines the supported software configurations. Below that another table will specify the schools and

actual browser and operating system configurations that were detected.


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Download Speeds

This page allows the user to view on a map the overall performance of the download speed at each

school. Dials show the school’s average download speeds compared to the provincial average. The

same information is also shown in a line graph by date and can be manipulated to focus in on a

particular date and school.

Scheduled Assessments

This page displays a calendar identifying the dates for when schools have registered to take the

Digital Assessments as well as the number of students registered (provided they have picked a date,

which is not mandatory). One large icon is displayed if there are more than 3 schools

registered on that day. Clicking on the icon will display the complete list of schools registered for

that day. A small red icon identifies schools where unsupported configurations were previously

detected.

Not Scheduled Assessments

This page shows a table providing details for the class lists that have been registered for

assessments but haven’t actually selected a date for them. There is also a count at the top for the

entire school authority of the total registered assessments and the number that have not actually

been scheduled.

Student Access to the Digital Assessment Students can sign in to the SLA Student Portal from the SLA application. Students can do practice

questions or begin the Digital Assessment composed of digital interactive questions. See SLA

Application at a Glance information.

Students will:

1. Click on “Start Assessment” for the “Grade 3 SLA” assessment.

2. Enter their 9-digit Alberta Student Number (ASN). (ASNs can be found in your class list for

each student.)

Note: If you haven’t started the assessment in the application, then students won’t be able

to continue past this step.

3. Confirm their identity associated to the ASN.

4. Test the audio and video on the computer. Students will play the video animation and

confirm they can hear and see the video. If the student does not confirm they can see and/or

hear the video, you will be alerted on your dashboard.

Note: Students should not proceed until the audio and video issues have been resolved. If

the student does proceed, it could impact their ability to complete the assessment.

5. Choose the first available assessment.



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Student Technical Issues

Alberta Education has outlined technical requirements to ensure an optimal assessment experience.

If a student’s computer does not meet one or more of these technical requirements, a warning

message will be presented to the student and the teacher. Clicking "Okay" allows the student to

continue to the SLA, though they may encounter issues. For a full outline of the technical

requirements, refer to the SLA Technical Requirements found on the SLA web page.

Practice Questions

Students can familiarize themselves with the digital interactive questions using the Practice

Questions before they begin the SLA. This provides students and teachers with the opportunity to

practice each different interactive question type in advance of the SLA administration. Practice

questions do not reflect SLA question difficulty or complexity.

Skipped Questions

If a student does not provide a response to a question, a message will appear to remind them that

they did not provide an answer.

At the end of each set of questions, students will be provided with an

opportunity to review the questions they did not answer within that

section of the assessment.

The total number of skipped questions for a student can be monitored

by clicking on the assessment section for that student on the Digital

Assessment dashboard. See Monitoring Student Progress.

https://www.alberta.ca/student-learning-assessments.aspx



sla user guide - alberta.ca · the student learning assessment (sla) application is an online tool...

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